Sep14
Oct11
J’adore Paris
So I’m back from Paris! I had an amazing weekend exploring the wonderful city that I just love so much! I kinda wish I had studied abroad there for the semester instead of Florence. (Even though it is much colder there and they eventually get the snow.) The city is just newer…it has a feel similar to New York City while still having a huge sense of history. The people in Paris aren’t just all tourists–Florence is a place that seems to run off the tourist culture.
I spent the weekend climbing the Eiffel Tower, shopping down the Champs Elysees, exploring the Catacombes, photographing the graves at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and wondering around the city. I went by myself and stayed in a hostel for the first time. All the other people in my room were really nice and traveling alone. Many were actually traveling for months on end around Europe. I met a lot of great people and heard a lot of great stories.
Now I’m back in Italy and need to get back into the swing of things here.
Oct4
Not Just Another Teen Movie
The Art of Getting By (2011) is about a high school boy who thinks that life is about more than just the mundane things of high school. I have to say that I really enjoyed this film–I always like these quirky, indie, character-driven movies that Emma Roberts has been doing lately. The characters are normal people–so much more relatable than the big blockbuster type movies. Fredie Highmore (who I will always think of as a little kid because of Peter in Finding Neverland) plays a character who isn’t “normal.” But the way he is perceived, he is a normal teenager. He;s looking for something, for himself. High school is all about feeling like an outcast. And here that’s seen as a good thing. He finds what is important to him and that’s really the only thing in life that matters.
Oct3
My Obsessions at this Very Moment…
Oct3
Oh How TV Can Make My Life Great
Dexter came back last night!!! I’M ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH THIS SHOW–probably my favorite show ever!!!!!
Also last night there were real tweets going out that there WILL BE NEW EPISODES OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT WILL AIR and there will be a movie!!! The show was canceled way too soon–more people watch it now then back when it was on! Will Arnett even confirmed it!! SO FREAKING EXCITEDDDDDDDDDDD
Oct3
Just Wanting to be Missed
Sometimes I just wish my friends from home would miss me. I don’t know, maybe they do but they sure don’t act like it. Most of them can’t spare two minutes to chat online and even when we set up Skype dates, they just blow them off. I don’t want to sound like I think everything is always about me…I don’t. It’s just that sometimes I have a hard time being so far away for so long–it would just be nice. Last semester I had a best friend study abroad in Ecuador. She didn’t enjoy it too much and I tried to always be there for her if she wanted someone to talk to/bitch to and I would try to let her know that I was thinking about her. I even do that now with my friends back home–and most of the time they don’t even respond. It just really sucks. I am having a good time here (I definitely need to start doing more) but I still miss home a lot. And most of all I miss my friends and family. I have friends here but it feels like freshman year–you make a lot of friends because everyone is in the same boat, all looking for friends and you’re not picky and when second semester comes around, you start to weed out the people that you aren’t actually friends with. Most of my friends from school I’ve had since freshman year but I don’t talk to half of them anymore. We just don’t have much in common. I feel like I’m starting to feel that way here–not that I have many options around here. My mom always says that you can do anything for four months–it’s one semester and I can handle anything for that small amount of time. I just miss home and my family and my friends–I just wish I was missed too.
Oct2
Kicking Procrastination’s Ass
I have a really really really bad habit of putting things off until the last possible moment. I wish I could be one of those people that live today because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring but I can be really lazy sometimes and always think, I’ll just do that tomorrow. For school I got into the really bad habit of starting my papers at 1 am the morning before it was due…even if it was a 10 page paper. My worst moment had to be the weekend I had to write 50 pages! (Even though I had the whole semester to work on it.) My freshman roommate was the same way so we would just stay up all night together getting things done by pulling all nighters (we would stay awake for one another for support) but I’ve just been getting worse each year.
Well I’m trying to get out of the habit–I really am. (And for once, I’m not using my blog or facebook or email as a way to procrastinate!) So I figured that I was going to do my paper this weekend that is due later this week. AND I DID IT! I had time to watch my movie (the entire thing), outline, write, edit and rewrite. Let me tell you, this was the first time I’ve done that almost all four years of college (well the last three–it’s still the beginning of the fourth) and it felt so good! I hope that I can keep this up for the whole semester (and next semester too!)
Oct2
31 Halloween Movies
- Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)
- Halloweentown (TV 1998)
- Hannibal (2001)
- Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge (TV 2001)
- Halloweentown High (TV 2004)
- Let Me In (2010)
- Casper (1995)
- Practical Magic (1998)
- Scream 4 (2011)
- Twitches Too (TV 2007)
- Zombieland (2009)
- Return to Halloweentown (TV 2006)
- The Littlest Vampire (2000)
- Double Jeopardy (1999)
- The Others (2001)
- The Witches (1990)
- Double, Double, Toil and Trouble (TV 1993)
- Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie (Video 2005)
- Tower of Terror (TV 1997)
- Insidious (2010)
- Twitches (TV 2005)
- Monsters, Inc. (2001)
- Dream House (2011)
- The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
- It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (TV 1966)
- Scream 3 (2000)
- Rear Window (1954)
- Beetlejuice (1988)
- The Wizard of Oz (1939)
- Cry Wolf (2005)
- Hocus Pocus (1993)
Oct1
Dealing with the Young & Inexperienced
I get that not everyone that studies abroad is an experienced traveler. I realize that I am one of a small group of people who have traveled as much as I have during my 21 years of life and that many of my peers have never left the country before college. But what I don’t understand is how at the age of 20, some people still can’t act their age. Basically I spent the day in Arezzo, Italy with two of my friends and this other girl that one of them had just met. She was really nice at first, we both go to school up in Massachusetts and have similar interests in movies and television. But after spending some time with her, it just became taxing–she couldn’t do things on her own (she made my friend find a bathroom with her because she couldn’t just go into a cafe and ask herself), she complained constantly about her roommates (actually calling them “the nicer one” and “the mean one”) and she freaked out when we told her that we weren’t going to buy return tickets because we figured that our tickets would still work (when the ticket guy came on the train she was actually fidgeting so bad and she was about to go hide in the bathroom)…I mean come on. Grow up. She comes from a very sheltered background and believe me, I understand that–most of my best friends that I grew up with were extremely sheltered. But unlike my friends, she hasn’t used college in a way to become independent or to find herself–she goes home on the weekends and thinks way too much about what people think about her. I commend her for traveling all the way to Europe, on her own, for an entire semester but I think she needs to do some major searching. Talking to her, I felt like I was much older instead of only a year. It’s amazing how much coddling some people need. I hope that she learns from her experiences here but I have a feeling that she may always be one of those people who just thinks they are the victim.
Oct1
31 Movies of Halloween
Ok so I was going to try and do a 31 days of Halloween by watching a new Halloween or scary movie every day in October. But I have some travel arrangements and I won’t be able to watch a movie on some of those days so instead I decided that I would try to watch 31 films over the entire month, whenever I get a chance to watch some! I have a few classics that I have to watch every year (Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown) but I’m going to try to watch a mixture of new and old/ones I’ve seen and ones I haven’t yet. I’ll keep a running list on the ones I watch but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Wish me luck and HAPPY OCTOBER!
Vivere Senza Rimpianti 
